Monday, July 29, 2013

Food for thought

I just had lunch with a couple of male colleagues, who lamented the lack of babes in my company (it's true though everyone looks like a mountain troll no kidding), and who also asked me questions about how many girls I dated in college, since I'm a "charming guy" or whatever (basically, I'm just a lot more social than them haha), and one guy was like yeah was it like 15 girls? Man. Could not be any further away from the truth. This dude who's 29 then told me he'll be waiting for my wedding day, and like in Wedding Crashers, he'll swoop in on all the vulnerable single ladies at my wedding. I told him I wasn't going to get married anytime soon, because I like being single. This other guy then took it to mean that I like having fun, and he told me that I should move to China, because it will be the best decision of my life.

I asked this bespectacled, very nerdy-looking guy why so, and he said because in China I can get as many side dishes as I want and need not worry about getting caught because it's such a big country and cellphones are cheap so I can get multiple to call them on. I told him that isn't my thing at all, because I value monogamy a lot.

What happened next was very uncomfortable. All of the guys gave me stares with mouths agape, and they asked me if I was being serious, or if I was religious. I said yes, serious, no not religious. And they just couldn't understand it at all. The same nerdy-looking guy told me that maybe it's because I haven't had enough temptation thrown in my face, and he said it's interesting that I think that way. He asked if my parents are very strict with me.

My parents are not at all. In fact, they are one of the least "Asian"/traditional parents in my country. Firstly, in Asia everyone lives with their parents until they get married. For this reason, some of my local friends have curfews imposed upon them (even at the age of 22 and having their own job) for weekends. Some are forbidden to come home at 3 am drunk. None of my friends have ever brought girls/guys home, except long-term girlfriends/boyfriends, and some parents would actually request them to keep their doors open whenever their other half was around.

My mom has driven me out to a gay bar before. We have never been given allowances, only credit cards which are essentially limitless allowances (I know the limit on mine is 50,000$), but every time my brother is thinking of purchasing anything more than 250$, he informs my dad first. My parents have never cared about us coming home late from clubbing, although they do tell us to take care of ourselves and not get too drunk and hurt ourselves. A couple days ago my brother brought a girl home (not a girlfriend) who spent the night over, and my mom actually met and made small talk with her. My parents also know I've smoked a shit ton of weed in college, haha.

I think the tighter the rein the parents have on their children, the more rebellious and wayward they become. One of my friends whose dad is a pastor, started sneaking out of the house at the age of 14 to go out clubbing. One of my sister's friends whose parents are very Buddhist dyes her hair a million colors, wears studded leather all the time, and gave my sister a very strong banned hypnotic benzodiazepine drug without (exactly) her consent.

And the other thing is, if my colleagues knew that I'm gay, they'll probably find it even more outrageous. A monogamous gay man? Oh em gee stAHp. You're supposed to cheat all the time and die from HIV by the age of 30! Curiously, even though N and I aren't a couple yet, I've already deleted Grindr, and on Jack'd when people ask me "what u seek" (fucking disgusting word what is wrong with these locals here), I tell them that I'm sorta seeing a guy and say I'm not looking for anything. I caveat all this though, that if a really smoking hot eight-pack bicepy stud mysteriously wants to hook up with me, I'm sorry N but wellll we're not actually dating yet hehe.

What I've learned is that men are generally just slimy lil motherfuckers. So really, these "values" aren't gay or straight at all, it's just whether you're a cheating lil douchebag or not. I would very much like to be a committed boyfriend, and expect the same from my boyfriend too.

I believe in monogamy too. Loyalty is very important to me. So while we might be in the minority, there probably are lots of LGBT that feel this way too. You need to be strong and not follow the crowd if what they are doing is inconsistent with your personal views.